Snurps

Ladies and Gentlemen, Neil deGrasse Tyson (and Stephen Colbert)

2012-01-12T14:58:00.000-05:00

Here is a wonderful discussion between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Colbert. If you aren't familiar with Neil deGrasse Tyson, here is a great way to start that beautiful relationship. He's an astrophysicist best known for hosting NOVA and various science shows, and generally for explaining and popularizing science. He's also the person I most admire in science, because of his way of demystifying it and making it understandable and approachable. I'm a huge fan of taking something "too complex" to be understood by laypeople and showing how anyone can grasp it if you work with them to understand it.

Summary: He is a great man, and inspiring to listen to. And here is him being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who (it turns out) is also an inspiring and deep thinker.

Obligatory SOPA post. But seriously this is important.

2011-12-25T13:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the politics again, but I feel obligated to do my part to spread the word about this. I think the ratio of ramifications to how many people know about it is really big on this one. It's the first proposal to censor the U.S. Internet. It will put us in a club that includes China, Syria, and Iran.

Suffice to say, watch the video, that will explain it pretty well. And then visit americancensorship.org.

Oh! But before I forget, here's the most important point I can get across: It won't work. Not at all. There are already point-and-click workarounds. This won't stop a single criminal. If you know enough to use BitTorrent, you know more than enough to be able to simply ignore this legislation. It is a completely half-baked bill. Half-baked, but horribly destructive.

Note: PROTECT IP is the Senate version of the House's SOPA bill.

Goodnight Sweet Prince

2011-12-19T13:36:00.000-05:00

Google's onmousedown link trickery

2011-11-18T11:41:00.000-05:00

So you do a Google search. You find something interesting, but instead of clicking on it perhaps you just want to copy the link. Say you want to IM it to a friend or paste it into a malicious site search service. So you right-click on the link and "Copy Link Location" or whatever it is for you people on Chrome/IE/Safari/Opera/RockMelt(loljk). Then you paste it into your destination, but what you get looks like this:

Obviously Google's using some redirection trickery for some kind of internal purpose. But when you hover your mouse over the link, the url that shows up at the bottom of the window is the normal, short, non-Google link! And that hover-over url never lies, right? How is this happening?

Well, the good news is that technically the hover-over url isn't lying. It is indeed the correct url at that moment. But try right-clicking on the link, and before you do anything else, notice the hover-over url again*. It's changed! It seems Google is using some Javascript tricks (like an onmousedown event) to show us the expected url at first, then change it at the last second.

Sneaky? Maybe.
Annoying? Definitely.
Clever? Absolutely.

*A note in case you try this yourself: this only seems to happen on like 1/4 of the links on a typical page. And there's no way to predict which ones it will affect.

What happened at 1:17AM, November 6?

2011-11-06T01:38:00.000-04:00

I just realized a weird side effect of daylight savings. In the fall, it creates an entire hour where times are non-unique. What I mean is, if I said I brushed my teeth at 1:17AM on November 6, would you know when that happened? It could be the first time 1:17 rolled around or the second.

I only thought of this as I sent a text during those ambiguous two hours and saw the timestamp. I use Google Voice, which shows the time sent next to each text. So I wondered if I sent one at 1:25 in the first hour and then at 1:17 in the second hour, would it show the one at 1:25 before the one at 1:17? I guess so.

Of course this mostly only matters if you think about software that timestamps things. Which is one reason why Unix time was invented, I guess. But I also start thinking about things like police reports or other important documents where you might say X happened at 1:17AM on the night of November 6. That doesn't specify exactly when it happened! There's no standard way to indicate what exact time you're talking about.

Again, this is one reason computers use Unix time, though I just discovered that apparently Unix time has this problem too. Its rule is that it always increases by 86,400 seconds per day. But some days are longer than others because of leap seconds. So again, we find that some times, like 915148800, are ambiguous. Now that really seems to pose a problem for software like server logging, etc. Why would you make the same mistake, Unix guys?

Note: Hmm, I wonder when I posted this? I guess we'll never know!

Luddite Fallacy: not wrong anymore?

2011-11-04T21:54:00.001-04:00

Smash away!

(Wikimedia Commons)

I just read this article suggesting that the current job crisis might be a symptom of a larger trend: disappearing middle class jobs. The author cites technology and outsourcing as the causes. The technology part reminded me of an idea that's been forming in my head for a while.

Technology is bottoming out the cost of anything whose price was held up by the difficulty of communication or automation. The news, music, and even postal industries all were undercut when the internet made it dirt cheap to transfer information.

Of course, it also made all those goods cheap and plentiful for everyone. For a while I thought that was part of the answer to why technology doesn't create the massive unemployment the Luddites feared. But.. lately I've realized this time might be different.

So maybe the way this is working is that there are benefits to society but the benefits don't address the drawbacks. So we get to live in a world with an abundance of information always at our fingertips but that doesn't help the fact that none of us have jobs.

Steve Jobs is bigger than Michael Jackson

2011-10-13T15:30:00.000-04:00

Remember in 2009 when Michael Jackson died, broke the internet, and the entire rest of the summer was filled with people playing his music? Well I remember at the time checking out the spike in searches for "Michael Jackson" and seeing it indeed exceeded any single event I could think of, including Obama in November '08.

Google Trends data: interest in Michael Jackson trumped Obama on election day and inauguration

Well, this last week I got notified of Steve Jobs' death by two different groups of friends within an hour and then realized the trouble I'd had accessing Wikipedia earlier that night happened exactly when the news broke. I thought "is this going to be a mini-Michael Jackson thing?" Turns out, it's not a "mini" one:

Google Insights for Search data: Obama, Michael Jackson, and Steve Jobs' spike.
Steve Jobs' is so recent it's squashed over to the right but look closely at the top of that peak.

I found it interesting to see that it's not just people over in the tech world who find this to be hugely significant news.

Postscript: The point of this post isn't to comment on the actual event. First, of primary importance is the fact that a man died after fighting a terrible disease, which is sad for him and his family. Second, to be clear, despite having significant problems with Apple, I'm honestly quite worried about the future of computers without Apple pushing everyone to make better and better devices. They have problems with openness, but Google, Microsoft, and everyone else has a problem with making things intuitive, tasteful, and above everything, useable. Apple pushes the rest to be better.

2011-09-22T01:31:00.002-04:00

HOW DO WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN

2011-09-12T16:43:00.000-04:00

Or, for the nerdier caption, "I hope this is in IPv6."

(source: uh, tumblr. all of it.)

Why don't we learn programming by example?

2011-09-08T07:58:00.000-04:00

A lot of the past year I spent in a highly concentrated study of programming. I've been learning both the semantics of programming languages and the high-level art/philosophy of coding.

And there's a lot of advice flying around. It doesn't take you long to discover that programming is a field whose inhabitants are keen to look at it not just as a job, but as a highly important zen/philosophical/artistic way of life. They care a lot about how you code. Comment your code, don't overcomment your code, use top-down design, use bottom-up design, code for readability, code for efficiency, use descriptive variable names, refactor often, modularize everything, and don't break out of a loop early unless you turn around three times and spit first.

I'd certainly like to follow all of it. I'm trying to synthesize it all into some idea of the right way to do it. But something I notice is that there are terribly few examples to go by. I find it odd that the experience of learning programming, be it from a school, a book, or a website, is not full of examples of other people's real-world programs.

I've realized that learning to write well-written code is very similar to learning to write well-written English. It's hard to declare rigid rules that you can just follow to get there. There's plenty of advice, but advice in a vacuum isn't extremely useful. You need positive examples of good writing. A lot of what makes effective writing is that it's easy to follow for people used to it being laid out in a certain way. It also uses constructions that are efficient and effective. That's for both written English and written programs.

You learn to write English well by reading books and essays written by the masters. But you're supposed to learn to write code well by.. writing code. I find it strange that there aren't far more examples of well-written programs in books and university classes. There are whole books and websites of collections of essays and stories! Why not programs? There are certainly enough people who care about it, let me tell you.

This post was prompted by reading an essay by Steve Yegge on overly-commented code by novice programmers. I'd always heard people putting an emphasis on well-commented code, so it was interesting to hear the arguments for why it can get cumbersome. I thought it was compelling, and I'd like to put the advice to use in my coding. I want to learn, Steve Yegge! Really! So please, just show me how it should be done! I want to be an E.B. White or Christopher Hitchens, but I can't do it without examples!

Visa's post-credit-card-fraud strategy a bit odd

2011-09-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

I recently got notified by Bank of America that they'd detected fraud on my account. Meaning someone nasty got a hold of my info. They told me they were changing my card number and mailing a new one to me.

So today I got it and noticed that they'd only changed the last four digits. Having spent a lot of time this year thinking about security (thanks, Security Now), this struck me as strange. Have you noticed how the last four digits are the ones everyone seems to just give away anyway? On receipts, online banking, mailings, etc., they always indicate your card by writing "XXXX XXXX XXXX 1632."

I used to think they accepted the lowered security of those last four because you still had the other twelve that are never given out (ignoring the fact that the first ~4 are entirely deterministic). But now I can assume there's someone out there with my old number, and the only thing Visa gave me to protect against them is those last four, weakly guarded digits.

Now, I know the chances of this person ever finding those last four are vanishingly small. It's probably not even someone close by, and they're not going to be going through my receipts or mail. Plus, I omitted the part where the CSC (those 3-4 digits on the back) is also different. So I'm not actually worried.

It's just funny that while cybersecurity people are arguing about researchers who figured out how to break AES encryption in 190 quadrillion years instead of 760 quadrillion years, in the credit card world they're pretty much saying "Hey c'mon, what're the odds someone finds all four of these digits?"

And hey, maybe they're being a bit more realistic.

image credit: clanao.com (Google Images)

Anyone still thinking of buying a netbook? Get 2GB of RAM.

2011-08-31T14:27:00.000-04:00

Well I was, and I did, and it's still awesome. Despite the fact that apparently tablets are killing netbooks.

Anyway, the point of this post is that when I was getting one, I was wondering whether 1GB of RAM was really enough in this day and age. Out of the sample size of Best Buy and Costco, few netbooks had more than 1GB. So "maybe the manufacturers know best? I don't need 2GB?" Googling "1GB enough" didn't answer my question. So here's my contribution: 1GB is not enough.

I got an Asus Eee PC 1015PE with 1GB of RAM. It was very slow, and I could tell it was accessing the pagefile all the time. After I upgraded it to 2GB, it sped way up. And I saw that upon startup it was already using 700MB of RAM (with Windows 7 Starter). And with Firefox regularly taking 300MB on its own, I knew 1GB wouldn't cut it. These days when I open up Task Manager it's usually in the neighborhood of 1.1GB in use. So modern OS's and browsers have reached that point. Get 2GB.

image credit: netbookreviews.net

Yes, West Coast, we know.

2011-08-25T09:24:00.000-04:00

Last earthquake post I promise, but this just sums up very well all the comments from the West Coast.

(via pleated-jeans)

Recovery will be difficult.

2011-08-23T16:19:00.000-04:00

(via jmckinley's posterous)

Conservative/Liberal "threats"

2011-08-16T13:51:00.000-04:00

(chainsawsuit)

Fun op-ed (for liberals) in the NYT from Warren Buffet on why he wants to be taxed more: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

So when I read this quote:

I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.

I realized — is threatening to not work/invest because of taxes the conservative equivalent of the "I'll move to Canada!" liberal threat? I knew the liberal one was a melodramatic, empty threat but I guess the conservative one is too?

*Disclaimer: I think this is as political as I'll get, since I swore to keep politics out of this blog

Why thank you Linux, I didn't want software, I wanted a project.

2011-08-10T20:08:00.000-04:00

Just ran into an image that perfectly encapsulates this ethos:

Sometimes I get a little tired of it. Gotta vent.

We're fucked - UPDATE

2011-08-08T09:32:00.000-04:00

2011-07-31T10:20:00.001-04:00

(Source: hatethefuture via whatevs.net)

F Yeah Nyan cat (and Youtube)

2011-06-20T12:35:00.002-04:00

Such smiling, sparkling insanity.

And how happy was I yesterday when I noticed what Youtube had added to the video? Take a look at the progress bar. SO IMPRESSED.

(moar info: Know Your Meme)

UPDATE: They took down the progress bar thingy! Awww. Well, here's a screenshot, which can't even capture the full extent of the awesome since it was animated just like full-size Nyan Cat.

Want to know what $8 million in Bitcoins looks like?

2011-06-13T23:15:00.000-04:00

Way up.

(credit: Penny Arcade)

At the moment, 432,000 bitcoins are sitting in one account, right here. For perspective, that's about $8.4 million dollars at current market rates, or (perhaps even more impressively) almost 7% of all bitcoins in existence! Current rumors are that they represent the entire holdings of all the accounts at Mt. Gox, the major bitcoin exchange site. They did have some outages this weekend, so maybe they're doing something with all their funds. Of course, who knows what it is they're doing.

Perhaps part of the puzzle: I was led to this account by a link posted by LulzSec on Saturday. The link shows a transaction where dozens of accounts transfer 50 BTC to a single one, totaling 17000 BTC in that single account. Then that account joins dozens more to transfer a total of 432,000 BTC to the account I mentioned above. What are all these movements about? And what about it did LulzSec find so lulzy? Was that just how Mt. Gox was storing its bitcoins, 50 BTC each in thousands of addresses? Are they just changing their organizational scheme? Maybe it's something as mundane as that, but even so, it's an impressive amount of wealth in one place.

side note: Earlier on Saturday LulzSec posted a tweet that seemed to hint at claiming responsibility for Friday's crash in the bitcoin market. Related? Probably not. True? Almost definitely not.

Bitcoin breaks $10

2011-06-02T15:42:00.000-04:00

(all graphs are from Mt. Gox)

After stalling around $9.50 for a few days, Bitcoins have finally broken through $10 on Mt. Gox, one of the major Bitcoin exchanges. And only a month and a half ago, they were under $1.

A tenfold jump in six weeks.

For the uninitiated, Bitcoins are a new digital "currency" that everyone has been talking about in recent months. I put "currency" in scare quotes because calling it a currency isn't the best way to describe it, and leads to confusion. It's better to think about it as a digital alternative to gold. Just like gold, bitcoins are scarce and can't just be "printed" whenever you want, like paper currency. Also just like gold, the bitcoin economy is decentralized and doesn't rely on a central bank, like with paper currencies or all previous digital currencies.

You're probably wondering now about how it actually works. Well that's a fifteen minute conversation that involves in-depth topics like cryptography. After plenty of research I'm still not sure I fully grasp it. But I'll take a shot at the 30-second version:

Everyone in the bitcoin network has files on their computer that contain records of transactions, signed and sealed with an official (cryptographic) stamp. Owning a bitcoin means that there are people out there who have records of a transfer of a bitcoin from someone else to you. So a bitcoin isn't just a file on your computer. They exist in records of transactions, held on other people's computers. That's why you can't just make more by making copies of files. And how do you verify that you're the person who received that transfer? Your identity is proved by your possession of a secret that you never tell anyone, called your private key. There's a cryptographic way of proving that you have this private key without divulging it.

If I've got anything wrong, please let me know. But that gives you an idea of the basics. That is how there can be a currency with no central bank. It's maintained by sharing transaction data between everyone on the network. Also, the mechanics mean that you can be anonymous even while exchanging money with people. All you need to identify yourself is your private key (and a corresponding public key). You never have to tie that to your actual identity.

That's probably enough for now. Later I might answer a few more questions like "What can I actually buy with bitcoins?" and "Will they keep going up?" For now, I'll give the short versions: a lot, and no. I'm pretty certain we're in a bubble and they'll probably be illegal within a year.

Ever had this feeling?

2011-04-20T11:22:00.000-04:00

P.S. Speaking of CAPTCHA memes, I have to recommend Inglip. It's already got its own complete mythology!

Google Video is shutting down! Help save the videos!

2011-04-18T19:58:00.001-04:00

Google Video will stop hosting videos on April 29 (seen at Geekosystem). It will still serve as a video search engine for other sites, but those remaining videos that are only hosted on Google Video itself will disappear. And that's a tragedy, because there's a ton of amazing things there.

The strength of Google Video is mostly the long-play, timeless videos of talks, documentaries, interviews, and esoteric full-length movies you can't find anywhere else. As soon as you start looking you find gems like the original Nosferatu film from 1922, a talk by the creator of object-oriented programming, a long interview with Stephen Colbert out of character, or a documentary of interviews with the repentant Secretary of Defense who fomented the Vietnam War. And then there's hundreds of full-length interviews by Charlie Rose. It looks like they have almost everyone he's ever interviewed.

I'm going to say it. This is worse than Geocities.

So what I'm hoping we could all do is download as many of the good ones as we can. There's a Firefox extension that makes it really easy, and even a no-install web service that can do it for you. Then maybe we can re-upload to another site those videos that copyright will allow, or in some other way continue to keep them available. Whatever the solution is, I know that the first step is to get these videos into as many hands as possible before they disappear.

I welcome suggestions in the comments, including great videos you've come across. There's a lot to go through.

UPDATE: I've found some like-minded people leading a centralized and organized preservation effort. It requires technical know-how, but follow the instructions on this page if you want to help build a collection for the Internet Archive.

I'll leave you with an abridged list of interesting things I've found.
(Sorry they're mostly nerdy. That's why I need you to help find the other stuff!)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Richard Feynman - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Rare interview with Neil Armstrong on 60 Minutes
Richard Dawkins - Nice Guys Finish Last
GoogleTechTalks - Building a computer from logic gates to operating system
amateur video of "Buildering," a combination of bouldering and parkour
The creator of HyperCard talking in 1986
Neil deGrasse Tyson talk at Beyond Belief 2006
Talk by the creator of Narbacular Drop, which inspired Portal

note: I recommend searching general terms like "talk," "interview," "documentary," or any other interesting genre you can think of. And you can specify Google Video-hosted results by including "site:google.com" as a search term. And don't forget to check it isn't already on Youtube!

Though words in haste be human nature, "orient man" is not preferred nomenclature

2011-04-15T15:55:00.000-04:00

Background: If you haven't heard of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, then you've got some awesome learning to do. It's the entirety of The Big Lebowski, written as a Shakespearean play.

I just ran into this video of one of the scenes:

So awesome.
The funniest thing is it's so similar to actual Shakespearean performances I've seen before. It makes me realize that a Shakespearean play is basically a Kevin Smith movie. Most of it is just a bunch of characters sitting around talking about random stuff only tangentially related to the plot. But watching it is nevertheless an interesting ride.

Anyone else ever feel like this?

2011-04-09T10:01:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, 100 posts

2011-04-03T16:59:00.000-04:00

Hey, so it turns out that last one was my 100th post on this here blog. Yeah, that's right, turns out I've actually kept at this for one reason or another. Experiment: ..success? It turns out it's interesting and fun to write things and craft a post now and then. At least, enough to maintain my interest in this.

So yes, to anyone who's stumbled upon this blog and is trying to figure out what this thing is, it's not just a forgotten-about project someone flirted with for a few months. I started it about a year and a half ago, and I have continued posting. There's not exactly a readership, though, don't be mistaken. There's about 30-40 unique visitors a day, almost exclusively drop-ins who arrive via Google searches.

Not that I'm against that model of displaying my work. The creator of Stack Overflow mentioned in his Google Tech Talk that they think of Google as their user interface. It's how people are supposed to find and read their site. And I myself have discovered the joys of producing useful things that are supposed to be found via Google to enlighten those seeking information. For example, there's this post on fixing Firefox's url bar and this one on a Google Voice technical issue. Both times someone was looking for that information and said so in the comments. If editing Wikipedia has taught me anything, it's that contributing information to the internet can be as rewarding as finding it there in the first place. It feels so good!

So I guess this concludes the State of the Blog. I usually don't talk about this stuff, so I thought why not take this opportunity to publish the info. Let the interested know what exactly this thing is. Oh, and don't let that graph fool you. I'm still just writing stuff I find interesting, as if no one's reading.

Image source: this better "100th post" post

Perspective, people.

2011-03-30T17:57:00.005-04:00

A few years ago there were headlines about research that indicated that most people don't know the difference between a search engine and a browser. There's a good description of the phenomenon at this blog post, along with this video of pedestrians in Times Square describing the "difference", in case you don't believe it.

I loved this bit of news. It really punctured the bubble of the high-flying digerati who are busy talking about whether Kickstarter is making nonprofits obsolete or if people are upset about Flickr using flash instead of HTML5*. Really, the number of people who even know these issues even exist is a vanishingly small portion of the public. The majority of internet users know that there's this internet thing that happens in this box on their computer and they can type things into that space at the top to read the news.

Any time you're talking or thinking about something technology-related, you should keep this in mind. 90% of everyone is not even going to understand the words you're saying, let alone care. They interact with technology on a very pragmatic, basal level. And honestly, that's okay. There's no obligation to spend a big portion of your life learning about this complicated realm. Maybe you don't have the time. Maybe you have to prepare that presentation or get groceries. Even if not, perhaps you'd rather work on your bike or go to a show. Those are legitimate interests, as is technology.

However, I happen to have an interest in technology so I usually enjoy these types of stories**. I just get a little fed up now and then when I remember how little it really, actually matters.

Anyway, now I just heard on This Week In Google (like I said, I do enjoy this stuff) that 90% of the American public doesn't know how to use Ctrl+F in a webpage. Bam! Again, we get our perspective re-adjusted.

It's not that I think everyone is clueless with computers. But I like these little reminders that there are a lot of assumptions we make about computer literacy and they aren't all based in reality.

Footnote: Google employee Dan Russell gave that Ctrl+F figure on TWIG #88, somewhere near mid-way.

*FYI, if you're trying to think of examples of this kind of fluff, a great resource is just browsing the Mashable front page.
**But I still don't like Mashable.

For everyone who's known these types

2011-03-28T22:02:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Fix the Awesomebar in Firefox 4

2011-03-23T09:32:00.004-04:00

In the interest of duly contributing to this meta-brain we call the internets, I thought I'd clearly outline a tip I figured out only after some Internet Detective (NSFW) work.

Problem:
In Firefox 4, they took a smart cue from Chrome and combined the URL bar and the search bar. So if you enter a URL, it goes to that page. But if you enter anything else, it uses your entry as a Google search, then goes to the Google results page.

Unfortunately, this means they lost an advantage Firefox has always had over Chrome, which is that if the non-URL terms you put into the bar have a single, obvious destination, Firefox will go directly there. It's basically Google's I'm Feeling Lucky result. So you can just type in, say, "youtube" or "gmail" and it'll go right to those services. Or, more interestingly, you can type "wikipedia giraffe" to get right to that article or "minecraft wiki" if you can't remember the name of Minepedia, the de facto standard wiki for Minecraft. But you know Google would know what you mean, so you know you'll going right there. Basically, you're typing exactly what you desire, which is already in your head in "words" format, instead of first translating it into URL format.

Beyond the time saving, it feels more natural and, well, it makes Firefox's "Awesomebar" truly awesome. I remember back in 2008 when I first downloaded Firefox 3, the first thing I did was type in "add ons" and it took me right there. It definitely felt like the future. So no, I can't stand to go back. ..I still don't really know the add-ons site URL.

Solution:
Man, sorry bout the tl;dr. Here's the fix, gleaned from this Google groups thread.

Open a new tab
Enter "about:config"
Promise to be careful
In the "Filter" box, type "keyword.URL"
Double-click on the one result
Enter this as the string value: "http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q="

Want to know what you're doing? Well the about:config page is good to know about. It's the whole, deep set of user-changeable preferences in Firefox. There's often a way there to fix something there that you just can't find a regular option or add-on to change. But yes, you can mess up your browser there.

Anyway, the keyword.URL preference seems to be the URL template that Firefox uses for non-URL terms you put into the Awesomebar. As in, if you put "http://www.google.com/search?q=" in there, then entered "test" into the Awesomebar, Firefox would direct the browser to "http://www.google.com/search?q=test". And apparently there's a way to form the URL that gives you the I'm Feeling Lucky result. It seems to require including "sourceid=navclient" and "gfns=1". Go ahead, try out http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=youtube. I swear that link isn't actually to youtube.com. Paste it in your browser to see for yourself. Cool, right? You learn something new every day.

Update: This guy has an even better explanation of the issue, as well as some behind-the-scenes info on how the decision to remove the feature was made in the first place.

Weirdest Google Spam I've seen

2011-03-21T01:44:00.001-04:00

www.google.com/search?q=LocalSystemNetworkRestricted+startup

I was just using Google to troubleshoot a Windows problem and noticed a very weird thing.

First I discovered a forum thread on exactly the problem I've been having. Woohoo, right? Then the next search result was someone on another forum having the same problem again. But no new info. In fact, it seemed to be similar information to that in the first thread. Very similar.

By the third repetitive thread, I started wondering so I went back and compared them all. It was the same thread, give or take a post, even with the same usernames for the posters. It wasn't just that someone had posted the same question in multiple troubleshooting forums. The posts were replicated in their entirety on all these different sites. One site even reconstructed the thread in the form of blog post comments. And these sites were every result on the first page of Google! (Ok, minus one conventional spam result.)

If you're anything like me you've got a whole number of different questions in your head right now.

First, how did they accomplish this? Did they actually copy and paste the posts into a page structured just like a real forum but actually fabricated? Some of them I swear are real forums I've seen around, like vistaheads.com and vistax64.com. But then again, am I just thinking of similar-looking sites like windows7forums.com? I guess the spammers could've copied their exact look to elicit this reaction of "Ok great, I think I recognize this forum.."

So then if they did copy fake threads then, uh, why? It's not the normal search engine spam where the page is full of keywords, links, and phrases that make it seem kind of like a real, thought-out webpage but on second look could all be auto-generated (I guess? They're so good these days!). In fact, most of these sites don't even have ads, which would at least explain the business model. Of course, that's with NoScript blocking all JavaScript so maybe there's actually a few ads.

Oh no, speaking of NoScript there's a possible explanation. If you wanted to build a shady site that distributed malware (via JavaScript and browser exploits) but needed visitors, why not copy/paste a tech support forum thread? People always arrive at those via Google search terms, clicking willy-nilly whether or not they know the site. Well I guess the damage is done, having already opened the pages. Hopefully they're not using any exploits that NoScript won't block.

In that case, though I'm listing the links for my reference and yours, I won't hyperlink them (even with a nofollow):

WARNING: POSSIBLE MALWARE/SPAM/SHADY SITES.
You are advised not to visit these. I regret doing it myself. I have reconstructed the thread after the jump so you don't even have to visit out of curiosity.

In order of appearance in the Google search results for "LocalSystemNetworkRestricted startup":

http://www.vistaheads.com/forums/microsoft-public-windows-vista-file-management/292696-local-system-network-restricted.html

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-file-management/185188-local-system-network-restricted.html

http://www.winvistatips.com/re-local-system-network-restricted-t165633.html

http://www.ms-news.net/f3839/local-system-network-restricted-8215470.html

http://www.svchost-errors.com/82/svchostexe-localsystemnetworkrestricted-actions-to-eliminate-error/*

*This one is actually a conventional spam site (without the forum thread)

http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/local-system-network-restricted-help-31087692.html

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/re-local-system-network-restricted-t3895632.html

http://www.oamate.com/local-system-network-restricted.html

http://www.realgeek.com/forums/local-system-network-restricted-381483.html

http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Vista/microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management/2009-01/msg00170.html

The mysterious forum thread after the jump:
Edit: Haha, just realized the irony that I'm actually copy/pasting this thread yet again.

Subject: Local System Network Restricted

Date: 10-06-2008

User: Don

I am running Vista Home Premium, 64 bit version. My computer has been very

slow for about 5-6 minutes after startup with constant disk access. I have

used the Reliability and Performance option under Administrative tools and

find that after about 2-3 minutes after startup, the only thing appearing is

numerous SVC|HOST calls with the (Local System Network Restricted) very

active. I am at a loss to debug any further. It is beyond my meager

capabilities. Can someone give me a clue as to what may be going on?

Subject: Re: Local System Network Restricted

Date: 01-22-2009

User: schobe

Don;853542 Wrote:

> I am running Vista Home Premium, 64 bit version. My computer has been

> very

> slow for about 5-6 minutes after startup with constant disk access. I

> have

> used the Reliability and Performance option under Administrative tools

> and

> find that after about 2-3 minutes after startup, the only thing

> appearing is

> numerous SVC|HOST calls with the (Local System Network Restricted) very

> active. I am at a loss to debug any further. It is beyond my meager

> capabilities. Can someone give me a clue as to what may be going on?

I have had the same problem repeatedly and have seen no responses

elsewhere on the internet. I am also looking for this answer. My system

profiles are in my profile. I have to use a memory scrubber to force

Vista to release the same SVC/HOST function. If anyone knows why this is

repeatedly happening, any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks, and God

Bless!

--

schobe

Subject: Re: Local System Network Restricted

Date: 02-05-2009

User: Frozen

I have the same problem. I thought it was a game I just installed

"Frontlines: Fuel of war" so i uninstalled the game and I still the same

problem. Svchost is running at about 50% cpu and slowing everything down. I

have the same "localsystemnetworkrestricted" problem. I will have to check

my vista computer at work because i have noticed the cpu is running high as

well. I'll bet I have the same problem at work.

"schobe" wrote:

>

> Don;853542 Wrote:

> > I am running Vista Home Premium, 64 bit version. My computer has been

> > very

> > slow for about 5-6 minutes after startup with constant disk access. I

> > have

> > used the Reliability and Performance option under Administrative tools

> > and

> > find that after about 2-3 minutes after startup, the only thing

> > appearing is

> > numerous SVC|HOST calls with the (Local System Network Restricted) very

> > active. I am at a loss to debug any further. It is beyond my meager

> > capabilities. Can someone give me a clue as to what may be going on?

>

> I have had the same problem repeatedly and have seen no responses

> elsewhere on the internet. I am also looking for this answer. My system

> profiles are in my profile. I have to use a memory scrubber to force

> Vista to release the same SVC/HOST function. If anyone knows why this is

> repeatedly happening, any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks, and God

> Bless!

>

>

> --

> schobe

>

Subject: Re: Local System Network Restricted

Date: 09-27-2009

User: asjapulk

I have the same proble. svhost (local system network restricted) is

making large amounts of IO (usually reads some WoW data files). I have

disabled defragment and ReadyBoost. It also happens while the PC is in

use. I hate that I don't know whats going on under Windows. Most

processes are svhosts..not much help.

--

asjapulk

Subject: Re: Local System Network Restricted

Date: 09-27-2009

User: (anonymous)

IF you right click svchost in Task Manager you can choose Go to Service. It

will highlite the contained services on the Service tab.

--

..

--

"asjapulk"  wrote in message

news:3abf5e6f0b1b904cf2f8f923cce536fd@nntp-gateway.com...

>

> I have the same proble. svhost (local system network restricted) is

> making large amounts of IO (usually reads some WoW data files). I have

> disabled defragment and ReadyBoost. It also happens while the PC is in

> use. I hate that I don't know whats going on under Windows. Most

> processes are svhosts..not much help.

>

>

> --

> asjapulk

This is about as old school as you can get

2011-03-06T17:57:00.000-05:00

Found on the Wikipedia page for "At sign."

It's so perfect. Green monochrome monitor, Cyrillic, BASIC, and the ambiance of some aging university basement. It's even got an .su address in there.

NPH would never do that

2011-03-01T10:02:00.001-05:00

Can we all just agree that Neil Patrick Harris is awesome? Also it's awesome that "NPH" has completely caught on:

And I'd like to take this opportunity to claim credit to Harold & Kumar for both launching his current wave of popularity AND for the whole "NPH" thing.

Oh, and one more NPH's-awesomeness-related image:

*note: I just discovered this is from How I Met Your Mother but I'd rather believe it's just an image macro about NPH in general.

image sources: reelmovienews.com and I forget, sorry.

2011-02-23T16:35:00.001-05:00

(see earlier post for background)

image sources: 1 2 3 (NSFW)

Eugh, Gawker

2011-02-11T14:55:00.003-05:00

(source link)

Haha, I'm glad Penny Arcade agrees.

Well, I'm not sure I care that much. But it's interesting someone has echoed my first thought which was "How nice that this is now easy to read on my non-existent iPhone." Not that I read much Gawker, but Lifehacker is a wonderful oasis in their desert of nastiness.

And going to Lifehacker, I was confused without my top bar of highlighted stories. Until I realized it was still there, but now it fills up the entire page while their actual blog is shrunk down to a corner under an ad. Apparently they wanted to showcase their top stories. So did they forget they had that top bar that already did that?

I hate to sound like those people that form a protest group every time Facebook does a redesign. But this seems like a pretty notable move backward.

More apropos.

2011-02-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

Packers win the Super Bowl, MST3K Style

Thanks to Will for this installment of Super Bowl XLV, the internets edition.

Apropos.

2011-02-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

What the hell is wrong with french bulldogs?

2011-02-05T12:16:00.001-05:00

Seriously. I keep running into these videos.

French Bulldog Puppy Can't Roll Over; Stuck Upside-Down

French Bulldog Tries To Taunt(?) Cat

French Bulldog Barking At Itself In A Mirror In A Lobster Costume

Just a quick note..

2011-01-31T16:36:00.000-05:00

I just have to inform those who may be unaware: Rubber-hose cryptanalysis is an actual term with an actual Wikipedia page.

Cryptanalysis is a term that usually refers to advanced mathematical techniques used to analyze encrypted data for weaknesses, often on the level of published academic papers. Which is why "rubber-hose cryptanalysis" is funny, because it refers to "cryptanalysis" accomplished by beating your adversary with a rubber hose until they tell you what the data is.

Why I edit Wikipedia

2011-01-24T01:16:00.000-05:00

In commemoration of Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, I thought I'd post something I wrote on my userpage about why Wikipedia is an important enough endeavor to contribute to. And yeah I know I'm a week late but here in DC we just celebrated yesterday.

Who am I?

I am an avid Wikipedia reader. I read much more than I edit. I read almost every day, [too] often for hours. As for editing, in 2009 I averaged 8 edits per month, just to give you an idea. I'd like to find the time to contribute more substantially, though.

Why do I edit?

Mainly, I'm just a big fan. You can learn an incredible amount on these pages, from what Westphalian sovereignty is to how nuclear power plants work to what the internet infrastructure is.

And there's a multitude of smaller topics that you never knew about but which are fascinating. To give just a few examples I'd name the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Omphalos hypothesis, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and Kowloon Walled City. And these are still far from trivia. Because of the standard of notability, most articles you run across will educate you on some significant facet of our world.

We've got a nascent Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here, just as the web always had the potential to be. This is why I list this site high on my personal reasons for why it's already the future.

Biology is Awesome: The Human Heart

2011-01-19T11:28:00.000-05:00

I think I should start a new series about how amazing biology can be. I now realize the first part in the series was my recent post on the sense of balance of birds. There are some things that are just unbelievable that nature can pull off.

Like the heart. Just think about the fact that a heart is a physical pump that is always in motion and can keep running for over 100 years. To put it in perspective, imagine a mechanical pump running without stop for 70 years. Hard to imagine, yet biology manages this regularly. The heart doesn't get clogged or lose parts to wear. It doesn't make a single mistake like that over seven decades, even though it never stops moving.

I know it just sounds like some stoner epiphany, but it's things like this that make biology (or any science) an amazing thing to study. I feel like spreading the wonder because in the field I constantly encounter people who lost (or never had) this passion for it. Don't just do it for the Ph.D., the recognition, or even the pharmaceuticals. Do it because learning how it works is in itself amazing.

Image source

It's time to layer your userbases with your analytic sects

2011-01-09T15:43:00.001-05:00

The antidote to your standard breathless, hype-choked tech journalism.

That's it. Bubble 2.0. I'm calling it.

2011-01-06T09:14:00.002-05:00

Goldman Infusion Values Facebook at $50 Billion, Virtually Assures IPO

(And apparently more people have wanted to buy at that value than Goldman can accomodate. Which implies investors value it even higher?)

Not 100% on this but what can you say to that headline?

Mainly I want to lock in this bet with myself so later I can see if I was right.

Google Trends for History!

2010-12-20T18:20:00.000-05:00

Information is Beautiful's caption: "See how big cocaine was in Victorian times."

This is Google Books' new Ngram Viewer tool. Looks like it gives you the prevalence of your search terms over the years in published books.

So... it's Google Trends for history! That's awesome! I don't know why but I've loved Google Trends ever since it came out. In case you aren't familiar, it shows you how often people search for any set of terms you're interested in. So it's a rough, but surprisingly insightful view of the rise and fall of public interest over time for anything searchable.

I use it all the time, but I'm often disappointed at its historical wall of 2004. It doesn't show data from before then. And in any case Google didn't exist before the late 90's so you're out of luck if you're curious when Aerosmith's comeback really kicked in or when people actually started paying attention to Watergate.

So it's not like the Google Books' new tool has that kind of granularity. But the point is, we finally have a tool for seeing the general rise and fall of concepts in the popular zeitgeist.

yes, Minecraft

2010-12-18T17:50:00.002-05:00

**Edit: I've decided that if there's any chance I can create a Google search result for "crafting recipe Olivia Wilde," well then by God I need to take that chance:

"Ever since I saw Notch retweet someone saying that Tron Legacy is actually about a guy's Minecraft addiction gone out of control and the resulting intervention I've been trying to figure out what the crafting recipe is to make Olivia Wilde."
**/Edit

Chickens, internets, and biology

2010-12-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

This should just be a funny piece of internets.

But unfortunately I'm a biologist and so after I got over how funny it is, I got fascinated. Its head is so incredibly motionless! How? Think about the motions it's performing with its neck and body. We can't imagine coming close to matching that. Why have they evolved this way?

I can only guess it's because birds have an incredibly developed inner ear in order to react very quickly and accurately during flight. I've previously been amazed at the balance of birds. Have you ever seen a seagull or duck with one foot that nevertheless stands effortlessly motionless? Or think whether you've ever seen a bird fail at balancing on a power line and fall off. This image demonstrates exactly how accurate their inertial sensor is and how instantly it provides feedback. I guess that's what's necessary to deal with the split-second world of flight.

TL;DR: Biology is awesome.

Less-controversially awesome things Wikileaks has done

2010-12-11T10:01:00.007-05:00

(disclaimer: I really love this thing)

These days most people who recognize the name "Wikileaks" know it from recent hits like "Iraq War Diary" and "U.S. Diplomatic Cables." Unfortunately these well-known works don't suit everyone's tastes and critics are divided on Wikileaks. While I'm still making up my mind on their recent offerings, I thought I'd highlight some of their vintage efforts that might appeal to a wider range of tastes.

Translation: It's a big question whether the recent releases by Wikileaks are a good idea. Not sure what I think myself. But as a long-time fan of them it's troubling hearing so many assessments of Wikileaks and its merits from people (understandably) unaware of the sort of organization it's been up to this point. To help out, I compiled a list of previous releases of theirs that define my impression of them as an organization fiercely committed to free and open information. Then you can judge whether they still do more harm than good.

(credit to Wikipedia for the master list)

2007: Corruption of former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi

Wasn't even aware of this, but apparently Wikileaks helped expose a web of corruption led by this Kenyan president who funneled millions of dollars out of the country.

2008: Scientology's secret documents

During Project Chanology, they published highly-secret documents about rituals and beliefs in the Church of Scientology. When the Church predictably reacted with all sorts of rabidly litigious threats (including demanding logs identifying the source), Wikileaks reacted with one of the most awesome statements in the history of free speech: "in response to the attempted suppression, WikiLeaks will release several thousand additional pages of Scientology material next week" (which they did).

2008: British National Party membership list

The BNP is a British political party. All you really need to know about it is that membership is restricted to white people and it's so bad it has to keep its membership list very secret. Wikileaks obtained and released it.

2009: ACMA blacklist (Australian internet censorship)

The Australian government has been considering censoring the internet, originally with the excuse of filtering only extreme and illegal pornography. Wikileaks released their developing blacklist, which shows how it has expanded to a much wider range of questionably "objectionable" material and completely unrelated sites like Youtube pages, Wikipedia articles, and the websites of religious organizations. In an interesting case of how quickly they're falling down the slippery slope of censorship, Wikileaks itself was on the list before the release, because they'd released a similar Danish blacklist.

2009: Congressional Research Service reports

The CRS is an organization under the Library of Congress that produces research to help with policymaking in Congress. Their reports aren't released to the general public unless the office of the congressmember that requested it allows it. These are nonpartisan researchers (an expert called them "even-handed to a fault") and their work is a great resource when trying to find information on national issues. Which is why I think most people could agree that it's a huge benefit that Wikileaks published thousands of CRS reports in 2009.
Read more at the Washington Post.

after the jump:
More-controversial things that may still be more palatable than the war logs and diplomatic cables

2007: Guantanamo Bay practices

In 2007 Wikileaks posted "Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta," which detailed conditions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Apparently some prisoners had been designated "off-limits" to the Red Cross, which doesn't sound good or internationally legal.

2008: Sarah Palin email account

Remember when Sarah Palin's email account got hacked? During the election? Wikileaks posted her emails which included use of her personal account to conduct state business. Honestly I really just like this story because it makes clear how stupid and insecure "secret questions" are for online accounts.

2009: mirrored climategate emails

For those of you who think Wikileaks only acts in line with a left-leaning agenda, note that they were one of the sites that posted the climategate emails that caused intense scrutiny of climate change scientists.

2009: 9/11 pager messages

Again, on accusations of being a left-wing mouthpiece, note that they released 570,000 intercepted pager messages sent on September 11th. I think we can agree it's generally beneficial to right-wing Americans to remind us how we felt and and how we were thinking on September 11th.

I knew this was coming

2010-12-05T19:24:00.000-05:00

(kym)

Yo Dawg I heard you like blog posts

2010-11-30T19:34:00.001-05:00

I really love the evolution of the Xzibit Yo Dawg meme.

It started with simple parodies of Pimp My Ride:

But it quickly became about putting things inside themselves:

Then people stopped even finishing the sentence:

And now it's to the point that you only need the slightest hint of Xzibit's presence to understand that the image is pointing out recursion:

He's become like a symbol in the sign language of the internets.

Or maybe I just like progressions like that. Like awesome nickname evolutions. For instance I know someone named Yotam. Soon after college started his friends started referring to him as "Yotizz." Then it progressed to just "'Tizz." And now his friends will casually refer to him as "'Tizzlet." From Yotam. Awesome.

I digress. Further Yo Dawg internets after the jump.

U.S. performs 1,200 traveler laptop searches per year

2010-11-30T18:28:00.004-05:00

TrueCrypt: don't leave home without it.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman Kelly Ivahnenko:

"Between October 1, 2008 and August 11, 2009 CBP encountered more than 221 million travelers and of these, fewer than 1,050 searches were performed on laptops."
- Wired.com

For those unfamiliar with the border search exception to the fourth amendment, when you are flying internationally, security agents can take you aside and search your belongings without any warrant or reasonable suspicion. Ok, big deal, so I'm going to have to open my bag again, right?

Thing is, this policy has been interpreted to include searching all files on your laptop, phone, USB drive, etc. They'll even confiscate your computer for months, copy the entire hard drive, and mail it back to you.

Now is the first time I've seen numbers on this. That's a rate of about 1,200 searches per year as of last year. And I was already upset about this policy when I thought it was a really rare occurrence.

I remember hearing an explanation for this policy is that they've determined that searching the files on an electronic device is equivalent to searching your current personal effects. This is what gets me upset. I assume that the people who decided on this interpretation of the law imagine the contents of a phone or laptop to be just about the same as the contents of, say, a notepad you bring on a plane.

But many people, especially of my generation, have a good proportion of their lives on their computers. Personally I can't deal with physical things and lose them all the time, so my most personal possessions are files on my hard drive. Search my apartment all you want; there's not much I'd be upset over losing. But on my computer I have personal documents I wrote in 1998 in middle school. I have IM conversations from high school. I have all the texts I've sent since 2006. All emails since 2004. Calendar events since 2008. And 10,000 personal photos.

I know, no one cares about my middle school secrets or the texts I sent to my ex-girlfriend (though I could see them having a good old time back at the office with some of my photos). The point is, it feels as violating as a warrantless search of my home would've felt 20 years ago. Preventing such a violation is the whole point of the fourth amendment.

And it's coming to a laptop near you. So remember kids, if you want to spit in the face of a violation of your rights, TrueCrypt up!

DC crime map - by block!

2010-11-19T18:15:00.001-05:00

Ok this should be great, but on closer inspection it actually sucks.

My thoughts on first look: "Wow! I've still been going off this old homicides map because I haven't yet seen anything more precise. But block-by-block is amazing!"

But then I realized it's just a simple count of crimes for each block, not at all taking into account the size or population of the block. Hence universities, whose entire campuses count as one block, seem like the most dangerous places in the city. And then there's more obvious (and just dumb) examples like this pinwheel centered on Thomas Circle.

I don't think I'll be much safer on the small-slice blocks. In fact I think there's a good chance all eight blocks have statistically the same crime rate. If you measure it in a more meaningful way, that is.

So yes, in reality it's not useless. I've seen some interesting things when comparing blocks of similar size. But it's pretty frustrating. Because the DC Crime Policy Institute it comes from gives no info that would help better interpret the data. And because the information they give us is already divided into bins (5-9 crimes/year, 10-25 crimes/year, etc) you can't manually correct for block size with any accuracy.

There's several easy steps they could've taken to produce a better (not perfect) representation of crime in The District. The easiest thing to do would be to simply divide the number of crimes by the area of the block. Then at least they wouldn't have made a map that was near-meaningless.

I guess since that would be so easy, the only conclusion I can come to is that the map was mostly decoration and what they were most interested in was the data in their table showing trends over time. But honestly I found that less interesting than the prospect of seeing the spatial distribution of crime in DC.

Rally to Restore Sanity

2010-11-02T09:49:00.008-04:00

"It was very good humored, and one sensed that the entire crowd loathed Fox, felt queasy about MSNBC, couldn't bring themselves to watch CNN and caught NPR in the commute."

-Andrew Sullivan pegs the mood of the rally

Good photo galleries of the signs (best part of the day) here and here.

Died in a skydiving blog accident

2010-10-25T00:29:00.000-04:00

Just re-read a nearly 3-year-old xkcd:

And discovered that now the top Google result for "Died in a skydiving accident" is "Died in a blogging accident."

Wait what?

U.S. Government Seeks Backdoor into All Encrypted Services

2010-10-01T18:36:00.001-04:00

U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet

I really want to see the consensus on this story become, as loud as possible,

WTF is this, India?

Back in August we all* scoffed at this up-and-coming country reverting to its plebeian roots by demanding such a ghastly thing (if the image I'm painting isn't clear enough, let me add a swirling brandy snifter). But now we see our own government thinking India had a good idea with this. But if that brandy snifter-scoffing has any use, please let us use it to recognize how lowly we view this idea at least when put forward by someone else's government.

That's all for now. For further analysis, I'll defer to the EFF (usually a good idea):
Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications

*Yes, be "we all" I mean only the perpetually-drunk-on-tech-news demographic. I'm sorry! It's hard to quit! It's a disease, you know.

Modern spam: I'm not even mad, Baxter. I'm honestly just impressed.

2010-07-16T18:15:00.000-04:00

former comment on my post Desert Bus - Penn & Teller, Video Games, and Charity:

viagra online said...

great idea combine video games, magic and charity, in this way is so easy show to rest of people how video games can help and not for destruction or violence.
July 14, 2010 3:37 PM

("viagra online" originally linked to a page on safemeds.com)

I'm actually still not sure whether that was auto-generated or whether a human wrote that post. It seems at first that they actually have people looking at blog posts (at least cursorily) and writing comments relevant enough that before deleting them they require a discussion at the level of "Man, what even is spam?"

But my second thought was that hey, I have the terms "video games" and "charity" in my post, right in the title. So they could certainly have a general comment written for the topic of video game charities, then they search for relevant posts.

But then, how does "magic" get in there? I know they can easily relate the term "Penn & Teller" to "magic"; that's not the point. It's about why they insert "magic" into the comment. Is there a special variable in the "video games, [x] and charity" string? Would that even work enough to be practical? Almost seems more likely an actual human read the title of the post and made that comment.

The evolution of spam can get unexpectedly fascinating. It's almost biological in how it mutates in the face of evolutionary pressure from spam filters. It's gone to the extreme of irrelevance where you get an email that just talks about measuring the drapes on Thursday in order to not appear to your filter as spam, but its status as advertising is questionable. And now I see it's gone to an extreme of relevance where it blurs the lines between undesired spam and desired contribution.

IE 6

2010-07-12T10:46:00.001-04:00

Wouldn't that explain a lot?

(some context: DIE IE6 DIE, Bring Down IE6)

Google suggests lulz

2010-06-28T10:12:00.000-04:00

Some of these are really great. Also, it's a very easy meme to contribute to. See something funny when typing in searches? Screenshot! Honestly sometimes I'll intentionally type in the name of something to see what people are thinking about it. It's a pretty interesting tool in that way alone, really.

Unfortunately not an awesome Google Easter egg.

That's after typing only "i l"!
#2 ranking too!

Still don't know the explanation for this one.

Sort of reminiscent of recursion?

Even more after the jump!

Unbelievable but there is an explanation for this one.

Unfortunately not in the suggestions anymore.

Ok this one I looked up myself. I was pretty satisfied to see that come up after 5 letters. I mean really. Most vile marketing campaign ever.

And now an interesting "analysis" of the correlation between phrasing and, well, "interests"? "Life choices"? "IQ"?

Dear Yellow Pages

2010-06-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

We just got ours recently. Several huge books dropped off in front of a place exclusively inhabited by 20-somethings (maybe even an early-30-something), never to be touched again.

FYI, here's some ways to stop them delivering to your house.

(via fuckyeahdementia)

Wikileaker update - Hear Adrian Lamo talk about his decision to drop the dime

2010-06-21T20:59:00.001-04:00

I've found two interviews with Adrian Lamo on his role in the arrest of Bradley Manning over the Collateral Murder video.

For me the biggest mystery in this whole thing is what motivated Adrian Lamo, the hacker, to turn someone in to the authorities. Lamo has spent so long on the other side of the coin and had his own troubles with the feds. Why did he decide to go out of his way to help them now?

People are putting forward a lot of different theories, and eventually you want to hear how Lamo himself would explain it. Well, here's a June 10th interview from an Australian podcast called Risky Business (it starts around 17:30). Then there's another at Salon.com where he's pressed a bit harder for his rationale, though the interviewer starts to sound (almost) as obtuse and closed-minded as a cable news talking-head. You can find it waaay at the bottom of this article, conducted by columnist Glenn Greenwald for background but also recorded and posted online.

"can i forward a google voice number to another google voice number"

2010-06-20T21:30:00.000-04:00

In trying to find the answer to the above question, I noticed 2 things. First, Google Suggest came up with that exact phrase as I typed my search terms, and second, there was no good answer when you searched it. I'm going to go ahead and assume others are looking for the same answer and also couldn't find it. So then I had to go with the empirical method and just try it myself.

And no. It won't let you.

Hopefully now people can find the answer ahead of time.

P.S. I then tried forwarding to the same number the other Google Voice number forwards to, and that doesn't work either. It'll let you go ahead and add the number, but then it kicks that number off your other account. Adding insult to injury, to get it back on your other account you have to re-claim it and set up voicemail forwarding all over again.

Weird intrigue between Wired, Wikileaks, two ex-hackers, and the leaker of Collateral Murder

2010-06-14T13:51:00.067-04:00

(This post presented in Bold Name-O-Vision to keep track of the Major Characters)

As someone who checks Wired News regularly and will click on any article about WikiLeaks [Wikipedia article here], in the last few weeks I've been treated to a fascinating drama that's developed because of the arrest of Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning as the alleged source of the Collateral Murder video. This is the footage that came out this spring showing American Apache pilots in 2007 eagerly massacring a group of Iraqis including civilians and children.

The brief background is that Adrian Lamo, a famous ex-hacker, discovered during online chats with Manning that he leaked the classified footage to WikiLeaks. Lamo told the authorities and Manning was arrested. Now here's where it starts to get strange. Wired broke the news because Kevin Poulsen, another famous ex-hacker, is friends with Lamo and also now a writer for Wired. In fact he's been reporting on this story continually in Wired's Threat Level blog. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is unsurprisingly unhappy about Lamo's outing of their source but is apparently angry at Poulsen too. He (or whoever tweets for WikiLeaks) has been leveling a twitter war against both of them, assuming they're in cahoots. Assange, who has assumed Manning's legal defense, even sent an email to Lamo requesting his chat logs and giving him some pretty derogatory "advice". And we know about the email because of Poulsen, who got it from Lamo and published it on Wired. Confused yet?

Something that makes this so weird is that each side in this seems complicit in at least some dirtiness. For instance I usually like WikiLeaks but Assange's email and tweets are such unmeasured, defamatory attacks that they betray a defensiveness that overrides his ideals. Then Lamo, of course, looks the villain by gaining the trust of, then outing a whistle-blower simply following his conscience. And Lamo's relationship with Poulsen hangs a doubt over the image of Poulsen simply reporting the events in objective journalistic fashion. The greatest example is Poulsen's acquisition of, then public posting of the email from Assange to Lamo. Even the organizations themselves seem a bit questionable in this whole exchange. It's not what I'm used to, having Wired take part in the drama instead of telling the story from a distance. As for WikiLeaks, I've already talked about their tweets.

In fact, the only one who seems to come out clean in this is Manning, who actually appears to have the purest intentions. Not all the facts are out yet but people are already mentioning him in the same breath as Daniel Ellsberg, a leaker from a previous disastrous war.

(credit: helpful background from this post on "TechEYE")

You're now watching in THX Surround Sound

2010-06-12T15:44:00.000-04:00

(I think it's called "Dramatic Lemur")

Count to 1,023 on your fingers (spoiler: it's finger binary!)

2010-06-09T13:42:00.003-04:00

I just had the epiphany that normal finger-counting is in unary. It's like binary, but lower! For some reason, even though "binary" indicates "2" I never realized there could be a counting system below that. It's not complicated though. Unary is just what you use when you count with tally marks ( or ).

So I realized instead you can use binary! Cause your fingers can represent 0 or 1, right? And that should totally let you higher than 10. Who hasn't run out of fingers sometimes? And then I tried to figure out how high that lets you count. Since you have 10 fingers and each is a binary digit you can go to 2¹⁰-1, which equals... 1,023. Whoa.

Then I tried it out to make sure and see how easy it is to do. It gets a little weird. Here's an idea:

So there you go! Perhaps with some practice counting this way will be natural enough to be actually useful!

And in the interests of internet ethics, I will credit my source for this idea. A really esoteric source: this comment on a Boing Boing post where a guy mentioned, in passing, counting on his fingers in unary vs. binary.

(For further reading, I'll let you know there's (of course) a Wikipedia article.)

Made of Awesome

2010-06-04T16:40:00.005-04:00

Best response to anything ever.

Oh, and click the Read more » for obligatory derivatives. Even stupider, and even funner.

Google SSL

2010-05-28T17:29:00.001-04:00

Heard of Google SSL? Now Google lets you use SSL encryption on its general search page, meaning you visit "https://www.google.com" instead of "http://www.google.com". This way the things you search for are encrypted at your computer & decrypted at Google so no one in-between (i.e. your ISP, whoever's running that public WiFi) can snoop. But it's only for the general search right now, so beware: if you click on "image results" for your search term it's not encrypted anymore. You can read a more able write-up at Lifehacker.

The "real" point of this post is that I made Google SSL my default search to try it out and thus wanted to make a favicon to distinguish it in my browser. And I've come to like the one I whipped up: . Yes, it uses the old Google favicon () because dammit it's so much classier than the new one (). Also, that's the silhouette of a lock on top of it. Ok, my icon isn't that fantastic but I've found that the lock is large enough to be a recognizable shape suggesting security while leaving enough of the G uncovered to be clear it's Google.

Just trying to share something I've found useful, in keeping with the spirit of these great Internets.

Hmm, of course it seems to have a little bit of this flavor too:

The internet is actually kinda international now

2010-05-25T10:32:00.000-04:00

From what I remember circa 2000, the idea that it's really a "World Wide" Web was more theoretical than actual. Seemed to be just us Americans on there. But lately I've gotten the sense that this time around, we've actually got everyone joining the party. Ok, so obviously it's not everyone yet but all across different forums and media-sharing sites it seems easy to find someone logging on from another country.

And it's not just a vague feeling - I've got data* now!

The exclamation points are because I just realized that over the last several months I'd inadvertently collected a bunch of info on where sampled internet users are from. I did it through yourworldoftext.com, which I wrote about way back at the beginning of this blog (see full explanation there). To summarize it, imagine an online, infinite wall of graffiti, ASCII style. And where do the users come from? The main way (I think) that people end up at my sub-page is through Google's Chrome Experiments, though feel free to peruse Google's list of links to it.

Here's what I'm getting at: on this page I came across a DIY guest book of sorts, meaning someone had written "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" and people started writing their locations and current dates. The reason I say "I collected" the info is that without my effort this list would have been quickly written over or deleted. This version of graffiti is in pencil, and the commenters are a little eraser-happy. So I used my admin-powers to protect the list. And because I can't pre-protect text so I have to come back periodically and do a quick preservation on the recent entries. Over the last several months I made this an almost-daily routine of mine.

And so today I was noticing how a good proportion of the entries are from interesting places. I'll show everything I've collected up to this point to give an impression of how many entries I've gotten. If you're not up for perusing, I'll mention some highlights: Maharashtra, India; Szeged, Hungary; Turku, Finland; Rydzyna, Poland; Wollongong, Australia; and (drum roll..) Thimpu, Bhutan!

(but yes, plenty are jokes, which is to be expected on yourworldoftext.com)

*I'll be clear: my scientific training balks at any implication that this is properly collected data, with the biases and self-selecting issues inherent to internet surveying.

(title unrelated)

2010-05-21T09:00:00.004-04:00

Twitter oops?

2010-05-10T13:16:00.007-04:00

Despite how much it pains me to write a post about Twitter, I think I just caught something within 20 minutes of it occurring and that's just too tempting. So, in the interest of more experimentation with Breaking News:

It looks like people just found a bug to force people to follow them on Twitter. Remember when Conan chose to follow just one person and it was a significant (and funny) story? Well now he's forcibly following around 200 additional people.

But! Less than an hour after major blogs found and published the bug, Twitter seems to have taken action by resetting everyone's followers to zero. The Mashable post on the bug went up at 12:45PM today so the reset happened sometime between then and 12:54 when I noticed it.

Now, I'm sure they'll get everyone's followers list back soon. But I can't help but imagine the headlines if they deleted everything and had to set everyone back to zero.

Update: Twitter says the follow system is temporarily offline and the original bug is fixed. Meanwhile, twitter people lose their shit. Rumors abound of a mysterious, all-powerful Turkish hacker. Lulz ensues.

Update Update: Followers are back, but not reset to before the bug. Conan is still following 283 people. Also, The Toronto Sun has done some good detective work on the bug. Shedding light on the rumor of the legendary Turkish hacker, they found out that the bug was first posted on a Turkish site, then popularized by webrazzi.com. And after a hilarious game of telephone, we have Twitter denizens shaking in their boots at the thought of the Turkish hacker who managed Mission Impossible his way into the Twitter mainframe and steal all their precious followers.

Update Update Update: Conan's deleting his "followees" as I type. Down to 164 now. Kinda funny to watch. (2:30PM)

EU estimates biofuels produce much more carbon than oil does

2010-04-23T16:21:00.003-04:00

Allow me to (not so) briefly explain that comment.

A few years ago I was assigned a semester-long class project on energy. I tried to suggest that the group focus on how corn-derived ethanol is not the answer to energy concerns. They liked it and misunderstood it so that we spent a whole semester planning to advocate an ethanol-distribution network. Thus: frustration!

The greatest irony came about when, at the end of the semester, the professors liked it so much they offered me an independent study for the next semester on the same topic. When I raised my hesitations about going through with ethanol advocacy, the arrangement for the independent study fell apart. You'll understand, the professor I was going to be working with was a Capitol Hill senatorial staffer. And all the congress-people were gearing up to support ethanol, a political proposition with seemingly no downsides. Both environmental blue-staters and midwestern/energy-independence red-staters would get beaucoup political points. So this staffer was not about to understand me dragging my feet.

Of course, I may be a bit greedy because irony already delivered me a wonderful I-was-right moment later that very semester. That's when food prices spiked like crazy and the wider public suddenly turned on ethanol, calling it the cause. Of course, it wasn't technically an I-was-right moment since my main concern wasn't about food prices. It was that studies had already indicated that using corn ethanol produces about the same amount of carbon emissions as gasoline.

And now I see this report. It's a study by the EU which found that it potentially produces four times as much carbon as conventional fuels. And by the way the EU's incentive is actually to tout ethanol as a great thing. They got this by taking into account that raised food prices cause farmers to cut down more rainforest to grow more food. And cutting down rainforest is a big carbon no-no. Very high emissions.

So. On behalf of my kind-of-accidental moment of following my conscience, ahem..

Ha.

This Trololo is actually very good and will make you happy

2010-04-22T14:09:00.000-04:00

Wait til he starts up again the second time.

Ironing... TO THE EXTREME

2010-04-08T13:48:00.000-04:00

(Or, for shorthand, Ironing^extreme)

(even more after the jump)

And, I think, the winner of MOST XTREME:

How many third-party sites have their sticky fingers in the websites you visit?

2010-04-02T10:37:00.000-04:00

Using NoScript is an interesting experience.

Btw NoScript is a Firefox add-on that disables all the javascript running on any website you visit unless you allow it. What you quickly learn is that a website can (and usually does) run javascripts from other websites, and you have to individually allow each third-party site's script. Which is great for blocking ads from doubleclick.net or frivolous social media widgets from blippr.com. But it also lets you peer behind the curtain at how many other sites are, through some deal with the site you're visiting, getting a taste of your patronage.

Now, there are lots of sites with very few or no third-party scripts running. A visit to wikipedia.org will expose you only to wikimedia.org additionally, which is of course another domain from the same organization. On average you'll see, say, six other sites. But others...

Any visitor to The Huffington Post will have noticed how Web 2.0'd up the yin yang it is. See the collage to the left for all the ways you can buzz all over twitbook about that article on did you see Keith Olbermann on The Daily Show last night? OMG!

But when you have NoScript, you can see that 14 different sites are trying to put their stuff in your browser window every time you click a link.

There's one particular site I found that was trying to jam a record number of other people's stuff into our browsers. Mashable lives up to its name by producing a site that's a complete mash-up of its own website with everyone else's. The box listing them all was as tall as the website itself:

FOUND!

2010-03-28T22:43:00.000-04:00

Briefly seen at 3:13 this morning.

Wikipedia outage due to cooling failure in European datacenter

2010-03-24T18:16:00.000-04:00

Global Outage (cooling failure and DNS) (Wikimedia Technical Blog)

If you tried going to Wikipedia anytime from ~noon today to shortly before now (6PM) you were treated to either an "unable to find server" message or a page looking like html written by a middle-schooler (luckily Google's cache option is always there to save anyone totally without access).

Anyway, long story short there was a cooling problem in a Wikimedia datacenter in Europe and they tried to route traffic to one in Florida but they messed up changing the DNS entries. And because a lot of ISPs don't follow some protocols that speedily replace the incorrect DNS entry with the right one, the guys giving you your internet connection might not have known where Wikipedia's servers are for a while.

Oh, and of course you can already read about this on Wikipedia.

(By the way yes I am using this to experiment with breaking-news reporting. And no, I'm not sure what the point is when people are more likely to find the blog I'm referencing than this one. But why not take a crack at it? Isn't that what this thing's supposed to be for? Experimenting?)

This cooking show I saw once

2010-03-19T11:09:00.004-04:00

Aww, poor rage guy. He thought he was going to get some baking tips!

P.s. If you need some backstory, here's why this makes sense:

Google Voice transcriptions - oooh, pretty linguistics

2010-03-13T12:54:00.001-05:00

(Disclaimer: in case you're unaware, he's kidding; computational linguists love this comic)

So Google Voice's voicemail transcription is pretty cool.

I already assume that it learns its voice-recognition by training its algorithms on samples of real speech: videos with captions, people calling automated systems. That's pretty cool in itself, because it means it's not just teaching the software what "book" sounds like by having someone in a studio say "book". Instead it uses real examples of people saying "book" - quickly, imperfectly, with background noise. So it can understand you when you say it quickly, imperfectly, or with background noise.

But recently I've been getting the feeling that it's using another, very different trick to figure out what people are saying in voicemails. I think it's starting to notice what people usually say at different points in a voicemail. For instance, it's very likely to guess that you're saying "Hello" at the start of a voicemail. Here's an extreme example, where my mother left a totally blank message except for some breathing and "clunk"s:

I've seen this happen a few times recently. What I think is going on is that it's not related to the "beginning" "middle" and "end" exactly, but it's taking into account the wider context surrounding each word. As in, it's noticing what words are usually said one-after-another. Computational linguists have been using this trick for a while. And maybe it's taking into account more than the word immediately preceding, and is considering the context of the whole sentence or voicemail!

The cool new thing is that Google Voice's speech recognition isn't just matching individual sounds to words, but is thinking about the whole context of the message and asking what word would someone normally say at X point in the conversation?

Why is this not all over the interwebs already?

2010-03-11T03:42:00.000-05:00

Once again, internets, you have let me down and I've gotta pick up your slack.

Well hopefully now I'll find something when I google "international exit signs Portal"

Compare:

with

Yes, I was snickering to myself the whole Europe trip.

(prompted by Boing Boing)

UPDATE: Apple swings +6 mace of multitouch at enemies

2010-03-02T16:23:00.004-05:00

(followup to my previous note that "Apple can now swing +6 mace of multitouch at enemies")

UPDATE to the UPDATE!
Apparently multitouch is not one of the patents Apple is suing over! Very strange, though one theory I've seen is that they aren't confident enough that the multitouch patent will stand in court. Because of the obvious prior art. So that's cool. But my ranting about them patenting it in the first place still stands, so on with the show:
(via This Week In Google via Engadget)

Well, Apple has now officially used its controversial patents on multitouch to sue HTC, manufacturer of Android phones. Apparently Google has, since my first post, added the pinch-to-zoom gesture to its Nexus One phone (joining Palm which went ahead with that early last year).

And, of course, I gotta re-outline my opinion that it's a little ridiculous to patent something like the pinch-to-zoom gesture from the iPhone. It kind of seems like patenting the "shift-to-capitalize gesture" after inventing the typewriter. Plus, there's loads of prior art:

The following demo was made in 2006 and presented in a TED talk.
(jump to 0:44 for the money shot)

Let's talk about "Ke$ha" for just a second.

2010-02-18T17:35:00.001-05:00

Only because I just realized why the "rebellion" she's gotten herself famous for seems so familiar (if you need to rebrief yourself, recall this brief moment in the Tik Tok video and this recent.. thing).

Here's the point. Compare all that to this classic scene from a Twisted Sister video. i.e. "Screw you teacher! Your homework's way lame! Now we're gonna have a rad pizza pool party with Hulk Hogan! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"

Ok, sorry, got carried away there. But you get the point. It all seems like the same level of throwaway pandering to really young, aimlessly-rebellious kids.

Why I actually care about the iPad, aka "Zittrain Was Right"

2010-02-01T19:30:00.006-05:00

Yes, there's various critiques one can launch into about the design of the iPad. But there's one problem that matters a bit more than how hot-or-not this new device is. It's that this is one of the biggest confirmations that tech companies envision a future where they decide what you can or can't do with your electronic life.

Let me step back from hyperbole for a moment to explain myself. With the iPad, Apple has tried to expand the iPhone model into personal computer territory. The crucial difference between the iPhone and PC models is that you can make or download a program to a PC and run it, no matter what it is or what it does. You can make your PC do anything. The iPhone will only do what Apple lets it.

I'm really just summarizing Jonathan Zittrain, so for further understanding of what I'm talking about I'll just refer to his explanation:

If you actually want to get the whole picture, I'd highly recommend him in this talk.

Since I'm not saying anything new here and also because I don't have time for a full post, I'll just refer to the best quotes and posts I've seen that get at what I'm talking about. First, a great summary of the big distinction between an iPad and a real computer:

"Interactivity on the iPad consists of touching icons on the screen to change which application you're using.. ..Unlike a computer, the iPad is simply not reconfigurable."
- io9: Why the iPad is Crap Futurism

And here they spot the greater movement the iPad signals:

"This is Apple's big push of its top-down control over applications into the general-purpose computing world. The only applications that will work with the iPad are those approved by Apple, under very opaque conditions. On a phone, that's borderline acceptable, but it's not for something that is positioned to overlap with regular computers."

And then this great reaction from a disillusioned Apple fan, aghast at the fact that they haven't even included multitasking:

"I feel like a person who just un-jacked from the Matrix. I am taking a step back from being “content” in using Apple’s closed products. I’m scared. I am writing this on my Macbook Pro. Is Apple going to take all of my computing freedom on this thing too one day?"
- The Modern Geek: Apple Has Already Redefined Multitasking

Update: Zittrain has now written his official reaction to the iPad, published in the Financial Times: A Fight Over Freedom at Apple's Core"
It's not as "Look! Look! I was right! They're trying to push out conventional computers!" as I'd hoped, though others have now discussed Zittrain's future with the iPad included: iPad to Test Zittrain's "Future of the Internet" Thesis.

RAWK Sign

2010-01-27T14:22:00.001-05:00

Apparently this doesn't show up on Google Images yet, so that's gotta change:

Happy Belated Boston Molasses Flood Day!

2010-01-19T11:06:00.002-05:00

Boston Molasses Disaster

My favorite remembrance so far:

"NEVER FORGET. 91 years ago today, Boston was attacked by molasses."
by this guy on twitter.

Sorta evokes the "Nevar 4get" meme exemplified by this touching collage:

Opening today: Burj Dubai - world's tallest everything

2010-01-05T01:36:00.013-05:00

In case you haven't heard of the Burj Dubai [wiki], it's the next world's tallest skyscraper which they've been building in Dubai for the last few years. What makes it so notable is that it's way taller than any previous record holder. It's 2,717 feet tall, whereas the previous "world's tallest building" is over 1,000 feet shorter (Taipei 101 [wiki] at 1,670 feet).

I'll go on about that soon, but first here's a video with a really cool view from the top. Like, the top top. The guy's on top of the highest spire. It looks more like a view from a plane than a building:

The reason I say "world's tallest everything" is because I always remember people having to make distinctions about, say, whether the Petronas Towers or the Sears Tower was the "world's tallest building" because of rules like measuring to the highest occupied floor or the "architectural top." And beyond that they had to distinguish between saying "world's tallest building" (Taipei 101 [wiki], 1,670ft), "world's tallest freestanding structure" (Guangzhou TV Tower [wiki], 2,001ft), and "world's tallest structure" (KVLY-TV antenna [wiki], 2,063 ft) because of more distinctions like having occupiable floors (building category) or not being stabilized by guy wires (freestanding structure category). All that stuff made the buildings' records a lot less cool. Also, the "tallest building" changed like every few years for a while with the Petronas Towers [wiki] being built, then Taipei 101, then the Shanghai World Financial Center [wiki]. Each time it'd go up by like a few dozen feet.

So I'm glad they finally made one that's indisputably the best at everything, period. And it will be for a while.

This chart shows how hard it'll be to top:

Update: I came across a blog post that describes very well the confusion and nitpicking about tallest structures. The Burj Dubai: The Biggest God Damn Building In The World by Everything Everywhere

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon?

2009-12-30T01:34:00.001-05:00

At least I'm not the only one thinking it.

UPDATE: James Cameron's first draft of "Pocahontar" revealed!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAANS!!!!

2009-12-28T02:56:00.000-05:00

(hadn't even typed anything yet)

I mean when your computer suggests that to you, how can you say no?

Dan Deacon is in a commercial (for Google Chrome)

2009-12-15T19:06:00.003-05:00

So I was just watching something on Hulu when I was treated to a commercial for Google Chrome. The fact that Google has commercials in the first place is something I'm still getting used to. But this one was a double-whammy because it featured the Dan Deacon song "Build Voice":

Just 2 years ago Dan Deacon was just this weird guy with some silly songs on a myspace page. Then he put out an album that wasn't so silly and the indie kids fell all over themselves to praise him. Then followed a few tours, another album, and more praise. And now he's making commercials? Crazy.

For what it's worth, I think the song was well used and the commercial was quite good. Mainly because of the excellent point Google's trying to make, connecting the fight against software bloat to the feeling of a new computer. Oh, and apparently Dan Deacon only accepts commercial deals for products he actually thinks are positive.

Desert Bus - Penn & Teller, Video Games, and Charity

2009-11-25T07:45:00.002-05:00

Here is a story that begins in the mid 90's. Clinton was president, the world was at peace, and ~~Jay Leno would nurse you into a slumber every weeknight.~~ (no longer nostalgic)

Janet Reno teamed up with Hillary Clinton to get all into a moral panic about violent video games. She actually wanted educational videogames or something. Penn & Teller got word of this, as they were designing a game for Sega Genesis. So they had the idea to include a mini-game that very realistic and even educational. It taught you to be a bus driver!

Specifically, Desert Bus would consist of driving a bus from Tuscon to Las Vegas -in real time. 8 hours, through the desert, on a straight road. With no other cars and a top speed of 45mph. You could imagine just taping down the accelerator button, BUT they made the bus pull to the right so you constantly have to be correcting it. And if you mess up and go off the road, they tow you back to Tuscon -also in real time. What happens if someone had the determination to make it all the way to Las Vegas? Well, for your excruciating work you get, wait for it.. 1 point. And then you drive back to Tuscon.

Yes, I know what you're thinking: GENIUS. Here's some gameplay:

Tragically, this game never made it to stores (surprising, I know). But bootlegs made it to the internet, so the studious among us can now find and play it.

Which brings me to a recent development, which is an online comedy group who is doing a Desert Bus driving marathon for charity. Calling it Desert Bus for Hope, they are driving back and forth between Tuscon and Las Vegas as long as donations come in. Penn Jillette himself has taken note, and the local news reported on this particular kind of torture-for-charity. People have flooded their site with bus- and desert-inspired images and art, almost constituting a mini-meme. It's been like 4 days straight now and they've actually raised $83,000 so far.

And they've made an all-time high-score of 13 points!

Dan Aykroyd tells you about the world of the unknown and also Dan Aykroyd Brand Crystal Skull Vodka

2009-11-15T14:20:00.001-05:00

"The obvious question is, 'Why did we do this?'"

(oh yes, it's real)

"Apple can now swing +6 mace of multitouch at enemies"

2009-11-08T05:44:00.001-05:00

That's the title that drew me in to this digg post.

It's reporting that Apple has been granted a patent on the touch gestures (like "pinch and zoom") from the iPhone. It'd been reported long ago that they were trying to get these patents, which has been real controversial (i.e. "What? You can't patent that! It's like patenting right-clicking!"). And then in January we found out they got it. Hence "Apple granted +6 mace of multitouch" which they'll be able to swing at companies like Palm which has gone ahead and included pinch and zoom in its Palm Pre.

So I was looking up stuff about that whole deal (actually I was googling "apple touch prior art minority report" but that's another story) and among all the dry headlines was the aforementioned gem.

But really, this post is about the tragedy of unreproducible but genius comedy.

Let me explain. I was reading the comments on the original digg post, which is pretty much everyone crying out in one voice about how much of a d-bag Apple is being. I happen to agree, but all I'm going to say is that prior art isn't restricted to Minority Report and goes back to the 80's (also this is an awesome presentation and from 2006). Then after a litany of serious and diverse points against Apple, I see this (the highlighted one):

I know, I know, I killed the joke long ago. That's the point, really. The humor cannot be experienced by anyone else except by coming upon this in the same way I did.

But the more fun point is that this is, like, the point of the internet. Stuff like this. It's awesome, and it can't happen in any other medium.

R.I.P. Captain Lou Albano: Oct 14, 2009

2009-11-07T07:04:00.002-05:00

Ok, so if the name and photo don't ring a bell I hope this does:

Honestly. This may rank as the second most tragic celebrity death of all of 2009. It's right below Billy Mays. That's saying a lot. Oh, and sorry but I'm not just trying to be ironic "oh it's funny to focus on the obscure/humorous figures." Turns out these guys were just awesome in their own right, and in on the joke.

I looked up stuff about Captain Lou last year and found out that guy was fuckin' awesome. In the 80's he was a pro wrestler, famous in his own right. Then he basically just decided to do the Mario Show "for the kids." Here's his jolly take on his whole career. The Mario Show comes up at 0:54. I hope he was as satisfied with everything as he seems there.

High Heel Drag Race 2009

2009-11-02T18:26:00.001-05:00

Just realized it'd make sense to post this here. It's my footage of the Dupont Circle Drag Race last Tuesday.

If you're uninitiated, here's Wikipedia's brief introduction.

It was a fun, if rainy time. I actually knew four contestants, one of whom dressed up as Bea Arthur from the Golden Girls. Bad. Ass. Also, I found out later Mayor Fenty was there too.

Max what do you want for dinner?

2009-11-02T04:45:00.003-05:00

<3 the first 22 seconds of this:

If I ever have a child, he needs to be this kid.

Google Voice invites comma where is number porting

2009-10-14T00:36:00.003-04:00

So it's finally here. Also, I now officially know an actual, real, person-who-isn't-me who's signed up for it. Coincidence??

Now if they'd only get their asses on top of number porting. According to this summer, Google was supposed to be figuring out how to move a person's existing number to Google Voice, so it goes through their service when someone calls your old number. So you don't have to get people to use a new number. It was supposed to be rolling out later this year but a recent Google search will show that official news has been lacking for quite some time.

And apparently now AT&T is startin' some shit, tryin' to sic the FCC on Google. So I'm sure that's not gonna help things move along.

HOLD ON

2009-09-30T11:50:00.005-04:00

Wait, but I thought a trillion was big..

2009-09-21T22:50:00.003-04:00

Huh. This kinda makes you turn your head on its side in readjusting your perceptions...

From the homepage of Andrew Badr:

Google just announced that the number of unique URLs on the web has reached one trillion. I am proud to announce the second trillion.

btdubs, this is from the same guy that brought us yourworldoftext. Seems he has a pattern of making things that are outside the normal web fare.

Update: Waak Waak Waak

2009-09-21T10:53:00.005-04:00

Currently in the main domain of www.yourworldoftext.com/

(see previously posted explanation)

Sometimes I actually love my generation

2009-09-17T22:44:00.006-04:00

Within days:

And the images are just the start of the fun. The creativity of the bored masses is truly multi-media. Click read more to see them, cause it all just won't fit before the jump.

First the inevitable mash-up with an eerily similar incident from just days earlier:

...and at long last you can make your own Kanye interruption:

...then Keyboard Cat made his inevitable comment (with an earlier South Park parody thrown in too)

...a meme was born on Twitter (yes, I'll be tolerating Twitter for the duration of this meme):

and, of course, it's already been realized by The Power of the Internet (look in post below comic for description)

...and it's even an app on Facebook, Where Will Kanye Interrupt You?

so, to conclude, let's meta this meme up and pre-emptively declare it dead. Well, at least on this blog. Two posts involving Kanye West and pop culture is enough for me.

The Troll King Himself

2009-09-17T09:33:00.009-04:00

Kanye West re-defines trolling.

Literally. I have to revise my definition of trolling now. Mr. West's inspired performance pointed out what should've been an obvious mistake I made, which was to say trolling is "Misrepresenting oneself in an offensive or disruptive way for the purpose of comedy." Kanye's verbal diarrhea wasn't disingenuous. He actually meant what he was saying. And he wasn't just doing it for the lulz. This troll feeds on drama, not comedy.

Really, I might need to have two definitions. Unfortunately Kanye is probably the most common type of troll, defined by "causing offense or disruption for the purposes of drama." The other case is what I was talking about before, when people are consciously acting stupid because they think it's funny.

New Google privacy measure: Google Opt-Out Village

2009-09-11T01:09:00.000-04:00

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

The smallest number with no Google results

2009-09-10T23:50:00.004-04:00

is 155253458373 as of this moment.

After this moment, either
a) Google will index this page, making this page itself a result for 155253458373 or
b) Am I joking? Google doesn't crawl my page.
In the first case, I'll find out if/when Google visits my page. In the second case, this post will remain valid. Win-win?

Here's the actual explanation for this seemingly pointless post: an interestingly recursive question posed by Google Blogoscoped:

"What is the smallest natural number which when Googled produces no results?"

(click on the comments to see how complicated and layered the question can get)
And then this guy used the question specifically to check out Google crawling his blog.

see also: Recursion

Trolling

2009-09-09T21:22:00.004-04:00

Crossposted at Wiktionary.com
See, it's funny, cause that makes it seem like there's serious business goin on, cause this is a Real Blog.

So I'm pretty intrigued by the idea of a troll as a new name for a sub-genre of comedy not tied to the internet. As in, yes, it's very related to the internet but I don't think the internet is integral to its definition. Think of someone who shows up in the crowd at a protest with a "We have no idea what we're talking about" sign. I think even streaking is in the same spirit.

I tried to come up with a definition that doesn't mention posting it online as being requisite:

"Misrepresenting oneself in an offensive or disruptive way for the purpose of comedy. The audience for the comedy consists of the "comedian" himself and those in the disrupted community who understand the humor."